Unspoken
by KevlarMasquerade
Summary: A collection of unrelated ficlets, ranging from drabbles to full-length oneshots, inspired by foreign phrases. Primary ships include RobStar, BBRae, and CySarah, with some deviation. The genre and characters are subjects of the latest chapter and will change with each update.
1. Shemomedjamo

**Hello there, guys! I know that a bunch of you are like "Don't post a new story. Finish Hold!" And that… is a good point. However, sometimes I want to write other things, so let me introduce you to one of my side projects. This is a series of ficlets, ranging from drabbles to actual oneshots, prompted by words or phrases that don' have an English translation. **

**I'm sure this has been done lots of times before, but I still want to do it. If I never did anything that had been done before, I'd get too tripped up and wouldn't do anything at all. I don't know if that's motivational or me telling you to get over it. One of those. Let's try something more inspirational, then: It's not what you do, it's how you do it! Right? Something to that effect. **

**Now, I speak exactly ONE of these languages, and not quite fluently. Plus, most of these are idioms, so it makes knowing how true these are even harder. All I did was ask Google for some words, and the internet is only somewhat reliable. So, if you speak the language of the word I found and it's totally and completely inaccurate, I apologize. I have no doubt I'll run into that problem. Apologies to native speakers beforehand, and feel free to point out the inaccuracy in a review or PM, but I won't change the chapter if a word is inaccurate. A prompt is still a prompt. **

**Disclaimer: I'm not sure if these words are all correct, and I don't own Teen Titans. **

**Now that that's out of the way, I must warn you: expect lots of shipping. Not only because I personally like shipping, but because lots of the words were emotional or related to love. (Also the first one, though.) I stuck mostly to canon ships: RobStar, CySarah, BBRae if it can be considered canon. I also Dami/Mar'i'd, because I don't seem to be able to stop. One or two non-canon ships, but nothing heavy. Some chapters will be AUs, and I'm talking about Aus where one or all of the characters don't have powers, and possibly the dreaded high school AU. The kind of Aus I don't normally write but did this time.**

**Updates will be sporadic, since this is just a fun thing I'm doing when I hit a rut with a fic and need to take my mind off it for a while. If you're very interested, I suggest following to keep track. Buckle up and keep your hands in feet inside the car at all times, please and thank you.**

…

**Shemomedjamo **(Georgian): To eat past the point of feeling full just because food tastes good.

…

Beast Boy gripped his fork in one hand and his knife in the other.

Cyborg calmly tied a bib around his neck and narrowed his eyes at his verdant friend.

"This is pointless," Raven groaned, pressing her palm against her forehead.

"I think it is a most interesting way to settle an argument!" Starfire said with a bright smile as she floated in midair.

"Whatever. I just want to get this over with so I can watch Supernatural in peace."

"Yeah, yeah, Rae. Whatever. You ready?" Beast Boy demanded, adjusting his grip on his fork.

"I think the real question here is: Are you ready, Green Bean?" Cyborg taunted as he picked up a fork.

"I was born ready," Beast Boy answered confidently.

Raven sighed and clicked the button on the stopwatch with her powers. "Ready, set, go," she intoned.

Both boys began pulling plates piled with food toward them, shoveling various soy and tofu blends for Beast Boy and meat and carbohydrate blend for Cyborg into their mouths.

"This is what happens when they both want to play Skyrim at the same time," Raven muttered, rolling her eyes. "Because we can't just share like adults, can we?"

"Oh, Raven, it certainly is amusing!" Starfire insisted with a giggle. "In fact, in this fashion many conflicts were solved on Tamaran, although it is a bit more in depth as one must hunt and prepare the food themselves before ingesting as much as possible, and generally weapons were—"

"Then, in your expert opinion, how long does stuff like this usually last?" Raven questioned disdainfully as she threw up a shield to keep food from spattering over her.

"Oh, well, Tamaraneans do have eight more stomachs than human beings, and our competitions would last hours. I do hope that neither of our friends become sick!"

"They'd deserve it," Raven grumbled.

Cyborg had made his way through the breakfast portion of his meal, leaving no more than waffle and pancake crumbs on plates as he pushed them aside, and Beast Boy was not far behind. Raven had pointed out that perhaps Beast Boy had the advantage, as tofu was easier to swallow whole than Cyborg's food, but as the only solution was to give Cyborg tofu, it was left at that.

Grilled tempeh was eaten almost whole, and if Raven hadn't known better, she'd say that Beast Boy transformed part of his mouth into an elephant's trunk to suck it all in his mouth at once. Not that Cyborg was eating much less disgustingly, licking the plate to ensure that he ate every last crumb on it.

Both boys were on their inner sections now. Good; that meant that they only had the dessert portion, which was an entire pint of ice cream for each of them, and then this would be finished.

"Oh! They are so very close! Perhaps they will tie!" Starfire cheered excitedly.

Raven smirked. The tiebreaker. If they did tie, maybe this would all be worth it. "You think?"

"They are not quite done, so it may be too soon to tell. But it certainly looks that way!"

They both grabbed their tubs of ice cream—chocolate for Cyborg, soy with vanilla bean for Beast Boy—and glared at each other before ripping the tops off. The dug in, not even bothering to use a spoon, licking ice cream from their hands and fingers in a desperate attempt to finish first.

"Done!" they both shouted at the same, their faces falling as they realize that they had, indeed, ended in a tie.

"Wait a minute. There's no way! I totally ate more than him!" Cyborg shouted, gesturing at his plates and Beast Boy's plates with flailing arms.

"No way! I totally won! You saw!" Beast Boy turned to Raven with puppy-dog eyes. "You saw didn't you?"

"You both finished at the same time," Raven said, scolding Beast Boy for trying to make her take his side. "And you know what that means."

The boys exchanged a panicky look. "Um, you know what? Why don't we just take shifts. We'll rock-paper-scissors who goes first and we'll play for an hour each."

"Good idea, BB," Cyborg agreed, nodding his head vigorously.

"Nope. You started this. You might as well finish it," Raven told them with a smirk.

"Do not fret, friends! I have done the preparations!"

"No, Star wait—!" Cyborg tried to stop her, but it was too late. She was already too excited, and none of them managed to ever say no to Starfire when she got excited about things like this.

"The glorp is ready for ingestion!" Starfire chirped as she pulled what appeared to be green jello that had brown dots in it and was alive. It wiggled on its own, waves running down the arced sides on their own.

"Whoever eats the most of this wins," Raven reminded the boys, grinning now. She gathered the dirty dishes with her powers and placed them in the sink. "Too late to back out now."

Cyborg and Beast Boy watched with growing dread as Starfire placed the glorp on the table, where it continued to wiggle. Raven was right. Their competition aside, Starfire was too pleased for them to back out now.

They sat reluctantly.

Raven levitated spoons to their hands and the boys gulped.

Saved by the sliding doors. Robin stepped into the room, eyeing the dishes in the sink. "What's going on in here?"

"Robin!" Beast boy and Cyborg shouted, happy for the interruption.

He raised his eyebrows at them suspiciously.

"They're having some pointless competition to see who gets to play Skyrim first," Raven sighed.

"Oh," Robin said, understanding evident in his voice. He eyes the green jello-like substance on the table. "You're settling the argument with glorp?"

"Well, this is the tie-breaker," Cyborg explained. "Whoever eats the most of this stuff wins."

Robin shrugged and took a spoon out of the drawer, scooping up a large amount of the glorp and popping it into his mouth. "I don't see what the big deal is," he said after swallowing the substance.

Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Raven stared at him. "Did he just…?" Beast Boy asked weakly before passing out.

"Oh man. I'm gonna lose it. Bathroom!" Cyborg shouted, on hand over his mouth and the other over his stomach as he ran out of the common room.

"You ate Starfire's alien food," Raven said slowly, making sure Robin knew what he was doing.

"I know," Robin said, lowering an eyebrow. "It's a Tamaranean vegetable. The brown spots are seeds," he explained, glancing at Starfire, who nodded happily.

"It's… alive…" Raven reminded him, pointing to the wiggling substance.

He shrugged. "Tamaranean plants do that. I guess it's kinda weird, but it stops wiggling like that when you put it in your mouth. It tastes like kiwi-flavored jello."

Raven glanced at the glorp. Which had reformed around the hole Robin's spoon made in it. "Right. Whatever." She glanced at the TV. "Supernatural?"

Robin shrugged and Starfire nodded. "I was gonna take a break anyway."

At least it would be quiet in the common room for a while.

**So, right after I warn you there will be lots of ships, I give you a non-shippy ficlet. That's what I do. (Btw, that was implied RobStar and BBRae. Not that it matters much.) I know it says because the food tastes good in the definition of the word… but this is what I came up with. No teaser, because this is not that kind of fic.**


	2. Koi no Yokan

**This is much more of a reflection drabble than a thing with plot in it. This basically is what Robin and Starfire had going on from Go! through the rest of the seasons. Written in the present tense to avoid past perfect. (Also I've been practicing with present tense. It has its moments.)**

…

**Koi no Yokan** (Japanese): Less intense or cliché than 'love at first sight', it's the feeling one gets upon meeting someone that they will, eventually, fall in love.

…

Being in Tokyo now, where everything was strange to him except for his closest friends—and new girlfriend—it reminds Robin a lot of when he first came to Jump, when everything was strange, including the ragtag team of metahumans he found himself forming.

Being with Starfire like this, he thinks as brings a hand up to her temple and brushes her hair away from her forehead—a gesture he imagined doing so often before and finally is able to do as she curls against his shoulder—this is something he could always envision clearly in his mind.

Over the years, it wasn't like he was singularly obsessed with Starfire. Sure, she crossed his mind more often than other girls. But it wasn't exclusive—not at first, anyway. Other girls, though, he'd think 'Yeah, they're hot. Yeah, they have an awesome personality.' But he's never been able to picture himself with them, either as Robin or as Dick Grayson. It would get fuzzy.

That was always different with Starfire. He'd always be able to imagine them together, hanging out around the Tower, or out on patrol together, or on a real date in their uniforms. Recently, he's even been kicking around an image of him in his civvies and Starfire hologrammed with one of Cyborg's rings. Or maybe at a Wayne Event. He wouldn't hate them so much if he didn't always have to endure the flirting.

He wouldn't say he thought much of her when they first met. It's hard to be distracted while you're ducking cars, and it was Raven who suggested that he use a friendly approach. It definitely isn't as though he saw her and he immediately, intuitively recognized her shining spirit, or the pretty way her mouth curves when she smiles, or the soothing quality of her voice when she speaks softly.

He didn't stop to notice her looks, either, which is ridiculous considering she was in that skin-tight Tamaranean armor, and now that he thought about it, her hair was flying all over the place. He likes her hair, and he runs his fingers through it again. She sighs softly and she must be asleep. That's okay, the movie they were watching ended a while ago and he had been staring at the television as it flashed infomercials at him in rapid Japanese.

Anyway, when he met her, he was in hero-mode. He was usually in her-mode. Hero-mode doesn't let you take breaks to notice pretty girls. Cyborg and Beast Boy didn't seem to have this problem, then again their 'hero-modes' were different breeds from his. Theirs were more like kittens swatting at whatever came close to them while his was more… bat-like.

And then she kissed him. She had no idea what it meant to him, or if she did, she didn't care. Possibly she never had any intention of seeing him after that, but she didn't know how much tht rattled him.

Robin had been kissed before. Many times. Often without necessarily wanting it. Bratty girls, the daughters of Bruce's business associates, would sneak him one occasionally. Sometimes he'd kiss them back, but he usually wouldn't.

His first kiss with Starfire was nothing remarkable compared to those, or compared to ones he'd shared with people who were actually special to him—the one time Barbara kissed him, which left him conflicted and confused but somehow they both decided to ignore—but for some reason, he couldn't forget kissing Starfire.

When she explained earlier that it was all part of a language transfer, he felt a little cheated. Does she consider that their first kiss? Although, she must have an understanding by now and recognize the difference, neatly categorized into Tamaranean and human interactions and clearly different experiences.

He rests his cheek on the top of her head, getting sleepy. If it wasn't love at first sight, then when did he start to love her? Certainly before ever considering going to Tokyo.

He wouldn't let himself love her for a long time. People say that you can't choose how you feel, and maybe that's true, but you can choose how you act. And sometimes acting a certain way can help you feel something less. For example, after his apprenticeship with Slade, he could have clung to Starfire and not let go. He wanted to. But that would have changed their relationship, and even if both of them were ready for that, the team was not ready for that. So he didn't.

It didn't stop him from wanting to, though.

Maybe he realized how important she was to him during that whole fiasco with Killer Moth and Kitten. The idea of doing something romantic wasn't what made him squeamish, it was doing something romantic with someone who wasn't Starfire. It was why he danced with her at the end.

The thing about being around Starfire was that he felt like he was always attempting to move forward. And now they can stop and just enjoy their relationship the way they were meant to. Together.

**Hah, totally didn't even realize that I had them in Japan while the word is Japanese in origin. That wasn't on purpose, but it is a nice way to come full circle.**


	3. Luftmensch

**So. I'm back. And I'm busy. I'm writing one fic seriously now, and that project will last a long time. I'm going to post the beginning of that, actually, today, because I have reached my ten-chapter buffer. Look out for that if you like. Plus I have a bunch of other things I keep jotting down, and I have taken to drabbling on my tumblr (link on my profile if you like). Just because I haven't updated Hold (oh my god I'm sorry I didn't give up I have just been busy) doesn't mean I am not writing. Onto the actual drabble!**

**This one's an AU, by the way.**

…

**Luftmensch **(Yiddish): Literally translated to "air person", meaning an impractical dreamer with no business sense

…

Garfield Logan was not good at paperwork. Outside of video game purposes, he wasn't very good at computers. Certainly, though, what he was worst at was sitting still.

These were all reasons that taking over Dayton Industries was a bad idea. He'd told his adoptive step-father all these things, and what's more, his adoptive step-father knew all these things first hand.

Steve Dayton was as supportive a father as Garfield wanted. They butted head sometimes, but they came together accidentally. Rita adopted Gar just before she married Steve—they were kind of thrust together.

Some people ask for family; some people have family thrust upon them. It was weird to think about, but true.

Rita died a few years back in a car crash. It was the second time Garfield lost a mother. There was no survivor's guilt for him or Steve—Rita was a famous actress and the accident happened when she was on the way from LAX to the scene of a movie she was supposed to be filming. Since her death, Steve and Gar kept their emotional distance. It was sad, he guessed, but they still got along fine. Steve just didn't feel like a father figure, really. And Gar had already had enough parents to tide him over.

Why on Earth their distance didn't extend to Gar's occupation was beyond him.

Steve insisted he take over Dayton Industries when the time came, and since Gar had absolutely no skill in any of the college courses he'd taken in the field of business management or marketing or any of those helpful things ended disastrously, to use Steve's word choice.

So that meant starting from the bottom.

He lost track of the minutes that passed while he silently stared at the screen—which contained the cover letter that was supposed to go to LexCorp for a proposal for a science experiment with prometheum, provided by Daytech, and some lasers or cloning or whatever Lex Luthor was famous for developing—Gar had trouble keeping it straight except that LexCorp always sounded like it was going to make some action movie with their inventions.

When the phone rang at Gar's cluttered desk, he was ninety percent certain it was Steve, checking up on him. Which wasn't good, because he'd forgotten what he was supposed to be doing.

"Hello?" he squeaked reluctantly into the phone.

"Gar?"

Garfield sat up straighter, suddenly alert. That wasn't Steve at all! "Dick?"

"Yeah," the heir of Wayne Enterprises answered. "You're still 'working up from the bottom' or whatever?"

"Yes," Gar groaned. "I can't get out of it. What're you doing?"

"College." The eye roll was audible. "I'm doing college."

"Yeah, well… You blow your money on classes or whatever. I'm getting the real life experience, here."

"Right, dropping out was all part of the plan." Ouch. Dick paused to let Gar defend himself, and when he didn't, the ex-acrobat continued. "Anyway, are you still good for that stupid thing on Friday?"

Oh, crap. Dick asked him a week or two ago if he could go to one of the events Bruce Wayne hosted at the huge Wayne Manor for Wayne Enterprises. Gar was supposed to have been looking for a date since then, but he completely forgot.

"Um…"

"You forgot," Dick sighed.

"Don't sweat it. I'm free, I just need a date, that's all."

"Can't you come by yourself?"

"I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer." Garfield shook his head at his friend. Dick should know by now that Garfield hated going to Wayne parties by himself, since Dick more often than not ended up getting flocked by girls eager to get a slice of the Wayne's very rich pie.

"Okay. I wasn't going to do this, but don't worry about the date."

"I'm not going by myself, dude. Remember last time how—?"

"No. I mean, I could get… the girl I'm taking to get one of her friends to come."

That was new. Dick rarely had dates for Bruce's events. Sometimes Barbara Gordon, the Commissioner's daughter and Dick's longtime friend, would go, but she generally disliked the more crowded ones.

"A girl? You?"

"Yes, Logan, a girl."

"Well, tell me about her! If she's fixing me up with her friend, the friend better be at least as hot as her."

"Don't be an ass."

"You're not the one who has to spend all night with a stranger."

"She's hot, okay? Just show up on time and don't embarrass yourself."

"Roger, dodger."

Gar couldn't help but smile at his luck. He'd get off from working here at four or five and he'd take one of Steve's jets to Gotham and be there in under an hour. And he gets a hot girl tied in with the deal.

…

"Dude," Dick snapped as he took his friend by the wrist and led him into the ballroom. "You're late."

"Barely! I came as soon as I got off work!" Gar snapped, adjusting his tie as his friend pulled him through throngs of people.

"She thought you were standing her up. Kory was starting to mad at me for promising that—"

"Wait, wait, the girl?"

"Raven," Dick informed him. "Raven is her name."

"Raven? Like a goth chick? I mean, that's cool, just that I didn't expect—"

Oh, wow. Both girls were very pretty. One was a redhead, with hair that curled down her back and framed her eyes, which were bright green and matched her dress. She was really pretty, but she was too tall for Gar. Honestly, she was probably too tall for Dick, too, but he wouldn't be saying that out loud.

But the other girl… She was pale, especially next to the first girl, but Gar liked that. Her hair was cut short in a way that made her eyes stand out. Both her hair and her irises were a luminous purple, and he quite literally could not stop staring. The color was beautiful against her skin. Her dress had straps that hung over her shoulder, and it was dark blue at the top and gradually turned black. It was like looking at space.

"Kory, Raven," Dick began, and he slapped Gar on the back. "This is Gar. He's my friend. His dad owns Dayton Industries."

"Step-dad," Gar corrected automatically.

"Yeah, whatever."

"Well, really," he explained to Raven with a sheepish smile, "he's my adoptive step-dad. It gets kind of complicated."

Kory and Dick were lingering near the two teens, being polite and making sure their friends got along before they went off on their own.

Raven snorted. It was unladylike, but it only endeared Gar to her more. "Please. You don't need to talk about complicated relationships with your father to me."

"Really?" Gar asked, tilting his head.

"Oh, yeah. Don't even get me started about my dad."

When Gar answered, Dick and Kory had slipped onto the dance floor, leaving the two of them alone.

Raven was full interesting thoughts, interesting words, and interesting experiences. Her outlook on life was an odd mix of macabre yet relentlessly optimistic, in a quiet way. She made him think of things he never thought of before.

Even when she was so enthralling to him, she seemed to be pretty pleased to be in his company, too. When one of the waiters Bruce hired to walk around with shiny dishes of impossibly small food held food out for them, Gar refused it on the grounds that he was a vegan. He usually didn't flout his veganism on the grounds that he usually tried to avoid coming off as a self-righteous jerk, especially in front of pretty girls with absolutely violet eyes, but he let it slip. Instead of making fun of him for it, raven asked him about his dietary choices and, somehow, he might have converted her to vegetarianism, if not veganism. She just seemed so accepting of his ideas.

Gar was used to being Dick's friend at these things. He was there mostly for moral support against reporters who hounded the young heir, and the two young men had a memorized routine that involved Gar pretending to get a spontaneous nosebleed and asking Dick desperately where the tissues were. It was even better with ketchup. Of course, the paparazzi caught on after a few times, but it wasn't as though they could stop the boys from leaving.

Being with Raven changed all that. He wasn't being compared to Dick. He was just himself. And that was nice.

Eventually, Dick snagged him by the arm and gestured his head toward the French doors t the back of the ballroom, where the gardens were. Gar shrugged and offered Raven his arm. She rolled her eyes and took it.

"So… you are getting along, then?" Kory asked from Dick's side.

Gar glanced unsurely at Raven, who smiled around him at Kory and, with a small smile, she said, "Yeah. We are."

"Totally," he added enthusiastically.

"Great!" Dick commented, and Gar didn't miss the fact that he sounded completely baffled.

Gar knew these gardens pretty well by now, and while Dick went to show Kory some fancy flower that only bloomed in moonlight or something else made up to make girls want to kiss you, Gar directed Raven to the rosebushes, which were the pride and joy of a certain Alfred Pennyworth. Roses of different color adorned each bush, artistically set up with a flair that was beautifully artistic but with such order that Gar could actually imagine the old butler crouching over the damp earth with a spade in his hand and planting the seeds, or however it was exactly that gardening worked.

"Each color means something different," Raven commented as she stepped away from Garfield.

"Huh?" he asked, not really very interested in the roses.

"Yellow is amicable. Red is romantic."

"Amicable, huh? Like Hufflepuff?"

Raven smiled at him, although she didn't seem very amused. "I think white is the prettiest," she admitted. "It's supposed to represent purity, but I like it because it's blank. Paint the white roses red. Or black. Or keep them as they are. The choice is yours." She snapped a rose off the bush and Gar winced. Alfred was probably used to that, but he'd have to apologize later if he ever wanted to be on the receiving end of the butler's homemade waffles again.

"Careful of the thorns," he warned, stepping close to her both to inspect the prospective damage she'd done to the bush and to see if she'd pricked herself.

"Always keep the thorns," she instructed him seriously, twirling the rose. "That way, a girl knows it was worth the struggle."

"Uh…"

"Oh, you picked one."

Gar turned to Dick and Kory, who were walking hand in hand, and he smirked a little at the dismay in Dick's voice.

"I'm sorry," Raven said. "They're so beautiful."

"Ah, that's okay." Dick said genially, although Gar swore he heard him mutter something about waffles under his breath.

…

Both girls had a good time. Raven didn't say so in as many words, but Garfield Logan was good at telling when people had a good time. And when they wanted to see him again. That night he slept at Wayne Manor, of course the jet back to the Dayton Estate on Long Island was just too much fuss after the event. The third thing he did that morning, after apologizing to Alfred about the rose and then eating his waffles made from scratch, Gar put on a nice button-down shirt that he borrowed from Dick over his usual non-descript t-shirt and he took the subway into the city.

He wheedled Raven's address out of Kory the night before, and after stopping at the nearest florist and picking up a dozen white roses with the thorns attached, he buzzed her apartment.

"Who is it?" Raven's voice asked, slightly digitized through the speaker.

"Delivery," he answered, disguising his voice in a way that certainly would not have worked if she was expecting him, but as it was she sighed and said,

"I'll be right down."

The look of surprise on her face was almost priceless—actually, who was Gar kidding, he probably had the funds somewhere in the stupid business he was being forced to inherit. "Hi," he said simply, brandishing the roses.

"Gar?" Raven demanded, unbelieving.

"That's my name, don't wear it out." He smiled toothily, and sheepishly he added, "Or do, I kinda like the way it sounds when you say it."

She glanced around furtively before putting a hand on his shoulder and standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Want to come in? I'm making waffles."

He rocked on his toes, debating whether or not he should mention Alfred's waffles. Nobody on Earth could beat Alfred's waffles without the use of illegal substances. That didn't seem a very gentlemanly thing to say, though, so instead he beamed at her and said, "I'd love some, yeah."

**Woooo BBRae fluff. Not my usual but I still love it. My drabbles don't do a very good job of relating to the prompt, do they? I got the business sense part, but I didn't really put much (any) effort into having Gar daydream. Oops. **

**This was an AU, if you missed that. Kory, Raven, and Dick met at Gotham University, Gar and Dick are childhood friends. Don't ask me about specifics with Raven and her dad, I didn't put any thought into it. Actually, that's a lie, I have. I just don't think it's relevant. (It's not.) **

**One thing I'd actually like to address… I never described Gar in this. You probably imagined him green, which is fine, but seeing as this is an AU, he wouldn't be green. It really doesn't matter that much, which is why I didn't mention it in the fic, but he'd have blonde hair and blue eyes. **

**See, this is why I'm not particularly good at drabbles. I have more in my head than gets put on paper.**


	4. Cafune

**Written on my iPod, please forgive stupid typos and my terrible editing skills when it comes to my own stuff.**

...

**Cafune **(Brazilian Portuguese): Tenderly running your fingers through your lover's hair.

…

Starfire never considered herself to be a vain person. Truthfully, she did fret over her physical appearance, but usually it was because she was worried that if she did not look good in a Tamaranean sense, she would never be accepted on Earth. She had seen movies, like the Mean Girls , and she knew that Earth girls placed very much importance in how one looked, even if they knew it was more important to judge how one behaved. Human eyes had a difficult seeing past the outer layer of physical appearances. It may not have been fair, but it was how things were.

That was why, right now, Starfire was sprawled on her stomach on her round bed, her head buried under her pillow. She wasn't crying, but her current mood was a far cry from content.

"Starfire," came the familiar voice at her door. "Let me in."

"No!" she called, her voice muffled by her pillow.

At this point in their relationship, Robin had access to Starfire's bedroom, even when her door was locked, but he wouldn't enter if she didn't want him to.

"Please?"

"Robin, I wish to be alone."

Any of the Titans should have seen it coming. Starfire was perhaps at a tactical disadvantage because of certain aspects of her Tamaranean appearance. The revealing uniform she wore did not protect her from things like claws or the occasional sharp weapon as Robin's or Beast Boy's did, and Raven at least had her cloak which she could draw about her. But Tamaraneans have skin that is a bit tougher to pierce than humans, and they heal more quickly, as well, so any damage that was done was usually gone overnight.

It was not her uniform that had failed her this time.

"Star, come on," Robin's voice wafted through the door.

Perhaps if she pretended to have fallen asleep, he would go away.

"Fine," he said when she didn't answer. His voice was gentle but firm. "I'll just sit here, then, and wait for you to come out." The sliding sounds against the metal told her that Robin had pressed his back against the door and then sank into a sitting position.

That was too bad, because she really wished to be alone.

This time, it was her hair, which she had always been proud of, which flowed behind her like an odd combination of flame and water when she flew, and as she reached adulthood by Tamaranean standards even burned at the tips when she became angry, that had failed her.

It was only the Fearsome Five, who were formerly known as the HIVE Five. It was not supposed to be anything that was difficult to handle. Raven fought Kyd Wykkyd, Beast Boy took on Gizmo, Robin was engaged in combat with Billy Numerous, and Cyborg was struggling against See-More. That left Mammoth for Starfire.

Mammoth had not only super strength that rivaled Starfire's own, but he was also nearly immune to her starbolts. She had beaten him before, but it seems that the Fearsome Five had become more ruthless than the Titans realized. Consistent losses have that effect on villains, unfortunately.

If it would have been any of the Five, Starfire did not expect it to be Mammoth. Kyd Wykkyd, possibly. See-More, perhaps. Gizmo, a very real threat. But Mammoth seemed the gentle giant.

Until he pulled a knife.

He was unskilled with the weapon, it was clear. He first tried to press the blade against her carotid artery, but her breastplate covered it. So he held the handle in a fist and pointed the tip at her stomach. It was possible to survive a stab to the stomach, and it would not serve the same drama as a wound to the neck. But Tamaraneans have nine stomachs. There was more to hit on her than there was on humans. One hand fisted in her hair, which she tried to ignite but she had not mastered the technique yet, he held her captive. She could not even struggle for fear of jerking into the blade.

The Titans froze. To make matters worse, they had been doing considerably better I their individual battles. Billy Numerous was stemming a bloody nose, Gizmo's machinery leaked blue sparks and black oil, See-More was surrounded by eye pieces that had fallen to his feet as Cyborg disabled them.

"Mammoth," Cyborg said calmly, holding his hands palms out to show that he meant no harm. "Think about what you're doing."

"No, Titans," he growled. "You know me. I don't think."

"Put the knife down," Robin warned.

Starfire's cheeks were hot with shame and she attempted to twist away, but Mammoth yanked her hair painfully. "Leave. Now," he growled.

"All right, Mammoth!" Gizmo cheered.

"Quiet," See-More snapped, his eye clicking furiously from Mammoth to the Titans, assessing the situation.

Mammoth's hands were not even in a position where she could bit them. Elbowing the giant in the stomach had no visible effect, and although she would not admit this, it only served to cause fiery pain to shoot up her elbow. It was like attacking brick.

"Back up!" Mammoth ordered, and the tip of the knife pressed against Starfire's skin, drawing a line of blood which welled against her tan skin.

The Titans obeyed.

This could not continue. Floating, Starfire attempted to knee him in the groin, but her movement made him press the knife against the line he drew. "We get out loot and you get to go free," Mammoth told her, and she definitely was not imagining the apologetic quality in his voice. Not that an apology would make this better.

Starfire charged a starbolt as the members of the Fearsome Five began stacking wooden crates to bring back to their base. She had never tried this before. She didn't know if it was possible.

She grabbed her hair as though she were about to pull it into a ponytail and she let a starbolt form in either hand. Tamaranean hair was nearly fireproof, being that it generated fire itself. The starbolts needed to be very hot. The strands sizzled beneath her fingers, and the green energy was almost too hot against her scalp.

But it worked.

The moment she was free, the Titans pounced with renewed energy, all at Mammoth. Starfire didn't know if the other members had been apprehended; she was too ashamed to be of any assistance and she Berliner for the Tower and for her bed.

It had been several minutes since Robin had said anything, and hesitantly, Starfire lifted the pillow from her head.

"Robin? Are you still there?"

"Yeah."

"You may enter," she told him, although she hurried to throw a blanket over her head to cover the charred, uneven ends of her hair, which hardly reached the nape of her neck anymore.

The door slid open, revealing the bright lights of the hallway as compared to the darkness Starfire created in her room by turning off the light and drawing the curtains, and Robin stepped into the threshold.

For a moment he stood silently, looking at his girlfriend hunch over beneath her blanket. Then he hurried to sit next to her and he pulled the blanket apart at her stomach.

"Are you alright? It didn't look like a deep cut, but—"

She had patched up the wound across her stomach with a first aid kit that Robin insisted they keep in their rooms. "I am fine," she assured him, and tears jumped into her eyes. "I am sorry for failing."

"Hey," Robin soothed, holding either side of her face between he his hands. "It's okay. It happens. If I had to write a list of all the times I screwed up with-well, you know-it'd reach from one end of the hallway to the other."

"I had to sacrifice my hair," she said, and tears jumped into her eyes.

"It's okay, Star. It's not so bad." He gingerly slipped his fingers under the hood she had created out of the blanket, but she pulled the material tight against her scalp before he could see.

"Please," she choked around a lump in her throat. "Do not."

"Well, I'm gonna have to see it eventually, Star."

"No, you do not. Perhaps Raven may purchase a wig and I will use that until my hair grows back."

"Starfire." The word was not a reprimand. "You're being silly."

"I truly do not wish for you to see," she told him desperately.

He draped his hand and sighed helplessly. "Relax, okay?" He tilted her chin up and kissed her softly, a reassuring gesture. "You know I love you."

"I know," she sniffed, and then she added, "I love you, too."

"Can I please see?" he asked gently.

Biting her lip nervously, Starfire jerked the hood back and the blanket fell open around her shoulders. The two long pieces that hung in front of her ears and her curled bangs remained the same, but bits of charred hair, all at different lengths, hung sadly around chin level, sometimes dipping down shoulder length. Combined with the tears in Starfire's eyes, it looked, well... sad. But Robin smiled and traced a line from behind her ear to the end of a strand of hair. "You're beautiful, you know that?"

Blinking made tears run down her cheeks, and Robin wiped at them with his thumb. "I'm sorry that happened, Star. We'll have to prepare for things like that in the future. But you know, this isn't so bad. A little uneven, but Raven can cut it for you so it's all... you know... styled, or whatever."

All she could do was nod. Gratefulness made her blink back tears. "Th-thank you," she managed when she had herself under control. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Robin's neck, squeezing perhaps a little too hard but he didn't say anything.

"No problem, Star." He threaded his fingers through her hair and traced lines along her scalp down to the charred ends. "It'll grow back, soon enough, but I kind of like it this way."

She placed her hand over the top of his on her scalp. "Perhaps I will learn to, as well."

Robin touched his knuckle to her chin. "That's the spirit." He stood and, backing toward the door, he said, "Let me go get Raven for you."

**Well. That was surprisingly angsty, considering the prompt. Seriously, I could have gone the complete opposite way with this. But I didn't because I love angst, apparently. I don't know how that happened, by the way. Remember when it was November and all my stories were sickeningly fluffy? Remember?**

**Also, sorry about the formatting, I was kind of unsure of what to do. There was a flashback (I generally hate flashbacks, guys, because I have no idea how to go about writing them, but I've done them twice in this little drabble series thing, imagine that) but I didn't want to mark it with ellipses like I usually do because it wasn't entirely separate so I just put an extra space and… *flails***

**One more quickie quick note (quickie is actually a word according to Microsoft, is something I learned just now), I think I'm going to be updating more frequently? Possibly once a week? (Don't hold me to that.) I've grown fond of drabbles lately, and I usually bookend my writing sessions with them. **

**I talk a lot more than is necessary in my author's notes. It's endearing. (It isn't.)**


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